Page 41 of Convincing Carrie
Her cheeks grew flushed, so I hurried her inside before she could come up with another way to incapacitate Thatcher.
The house was silent and felt empty. It was as if it already knew things were changing. I glanced around at all the furniture and décor I’d picked out so carefully to make our home both appealing and beautiful. None of it mattered now. It felt tainted.
And I didn’t even like most of it. I’d gone with monochromatic shades of gray to make it more sophisticated. I’d assumed correctly that’s what he’d be accustomed to. Of course, he was also accustomed to antique furniture of the highest quality. I hadn’t gone that far. It seemed insane to spend that kind of money on furniture.
“What are you staring at?” Blair asked, looking over my shoulder.
“Oh. I was just thinking that when I have my own house, I’m going to decorate with lots of color and fun fabrics.”
“There you go! Think of the positives. You lose a husband, but you gain a floral couch.” We both doubled over laughing, and I was glad Dad had told me I should bring Blair. Only she could somehow make me laugh while I was going through something so painful.
“Let’s go up to his office,” I said, wiping my eyes after I stopped laughing.
“Should I stay down here and keep watch? I don’t want him to sneak up on us and figure out what we’re doing.”
“No. I tipped the security guard at the gate a couple hundred bucks to call me if Thatch comes through while we’re here.”
Blair looked impressed. “Smart.”
Once we got into his office, I looked around. I felt a little overwhelmed. “Here,” I handed Blair his iPad, “you look for texts I might have missed that could be to or from Madison. I’ll go through his computer.”
He hadn’t changed the password on the computer. Unlike his phone, it was still our anniversary date. I gave that to Blair for the iPad. It worked there, too. He’d only been scared about me looking at his phone.
I went straight for his work email. It only took a couple of minutes of digging around to find a folder labeled ‘Ad Campaign.’ It might be dry, boring emails about the campaign, but it was worth a look.
When I opened it, I felt like someone punched me in the gut yet again. They weren’t about the ad campaign. It was emails between Thatcher and Madison. They ran the gamut, from somewhat innocent trips down memory lane between the two of them, to racier ones with her promising certain favors for him, to ones that were difficult to read. They were about how much they loved each other and had meant to each other over the years.
I printed them all out.
“Did you find anything?” I asked Blair, still adding emails to the printer’s queue.
“I, um, did.”
I glanced up quickly. “What’s wrong?”
“I found a dummy app.” She bit her lip as she looked at me. “I saw that he had two notes apps on here and thought it was odd. One of them is notes, and the other is a dummy account he set up for all of his texts with Madison to come through so that you wouldn’t find anything on his phone.”
I hadn’t thought I could feel any worse. I was wrong. “That absolute bastard,” I said through clenched teeth. “I found some texts from Mads before I knew who Mads was. He told me they were from a man name Maddox Spiller. When I found out whoMads actually was, he told me he hadn’t texted her in weeks. He handed me his phone to check, but I didn’t bother looking.” I shook my head. “And all that time he knew he’d downloaded a fake app, so he didn’t have to worry about me finding it.”
I stared into space for a few seconds.
“You okay?” Blair asked.
“Yeah.” I turned to her. “How did I end up married to an asshole?”
“I don’t know, sweetie. He had all of us fooled.”
I sighed, then frowned. “How did you know to look for dummy apps?”
Blair’s face turned red. “Um, well…”
My phone rang causing both of us to scream. It was clear we were a little on edge. I looked at the screen. “It’s him,” I said, panicked. “What do I do?”
“I don’t know. What if he’s on his way here? Or if he just pulled into the neighborhood and the guy at the gate ratted you out?”
I stared at her. “My God. Do you think he would do that?”
“Maybe.”
